The present invention generally relates to streaming digital media and, in particular, to systems and methods for rendering multiple video assets and transitioning between them with minimal disruption.
Streaming media assets (e.g., audio and/or video streams) from a remote server to a client device over a communication network is an increasingly popular way for retrieving and viewing various media. Example media assets include both an individual media asset and a media channel having back-to-back media assets. Such streaming is prevalent, for example, in video-on-demand (“VOD”) and HTTP Live Streaming (“HLS”) services. Media assets may be retrieved by a client device from one or more distribution servers. One or more content servers may be connected to each distribution server, providing media assets to be transmitted to client devices.
During playback, however, transitions between media assets often produce gaps, skips, pops, and/or other perceptible disturbances. Such perceptible disturbances may originate from coding techniques implemented by coding server(s) associated with a content server. For example, a distribution server may receive coded segments from a coding server. A coding server encodes (e.g., segments) media assets, and transmits the coded media segments to a distribution server. However, a typical coding server merely encodes media assets without tracking whether the resulting encoded segments correspond to one or multiple media assets. As a result, a client device must determine whether one or multiple media assets are being received from the distribution sever.
When a coding server provides a distribution server with coded segments for a single media asset, the requesting client device may easily decode the media asset. However, when a coding server supplies segments including multiple media assets (e.g., data representing a feed from a cable channel having multiple media assets), problems arise. Among these problems, the client device may have difficulty identifying segments corresponding to each of the media assets. As a result, perceptible disturbances frequently occur.
As existing approaches fail to provide smooth transitions between media assets, the inventors have developed improved systems and methods for switching between multiple streams of encoded media.